Historic and statistical data relating to the past performance of major league sports figures and their teams represent an important, if not crucial part of the overall experience relating to the game. Such statistics are typically available in reference books devoted to the subject or on cards. With a reference book, the user typically searches for the desired information by referring to an index or table of contents, or by thumbing through the reference book until the desired player's table of statistics is found.
For baseball, the typical table of statistics contains 13-26 parameters for each year of a player's professional career, which makes the process of searching for a particular statistic (e.g. "bases on balls" in 1986 for a specific player) a tedious one. In using baseball cards, the user is at the mercy of his or her previous organization, which may or may not be a problem. While football is not nearly the statistic intensive sport that baseball is, a number of statistics are of interest, particularly those relating to team performance and leaders.
A further problem with prior art methods of retrieving statistics is that they are not well suited to real time use in the field (i.e. at the game). The reference books and card collections tend to be large and difficult to carry. Moreover, few collectors are willing to risk their prized card collections in the sometimes harsh environment of the stadium. Thus, the baseball or football fan is usually relegated to bringing along a portable radio and gleaning whatever statistical facts the radio announcer considers of interest.